WIETHOP TRUCK SALES MARKS 40 YEARS

When Carroll Wiethop opened Wiethop Truck Sales Inc., a truck and trailer sales company at 20 S. Sprigg in Cape Girardeau, he sold International trucks.

The buildings at 20 S. Sprigg have been redesigned and renovated to become an office complex and International Truck has become Navistar International Transportation Corp., but Wiethop Truck and Trailer is still selling trucks and trailers.

"We started the company in July of 1954," said Wiethop, who came to Cape Girardeau from the St. Louis metropolitan area 40 years ago.

"I was working in truck sales at a Kirkwood dealership," said Wiethop. "An International truck dealership became available in Cape Girardeau, and I took advantage of it."

Wiethop, one of four owners of the company today, retired in 1987. The company, located at 2350 Independence since 1963, is observing its 40th anniversary.

Meramec Concrete, Inc., St. Louis, comprised of Virgil Vonder Haar, Lawrence Vonder Harr and Jeanette Mahacek, owns a 75 percent interest in the company. Directors of the company are Wiethop, Virgil Vonder Harr, Mahacek and Tom Blassie.

Bill Gosche, who has been with the company 22 years, was recently named president of Wiethop Truck Sales Inc. Kim G. Rigdon has been named office manager and assistant secretary.

Wiethop, who worked for the Kirkwood dealership eight years before coming to Cape Girardeau, opened the truck dealership on July 26, 1954.

Five years later, Wiethop added a Buick dealership to the operation. The Buick dealership was sold in 1965.

Wiethop also operated a trucking line in the 1960s. "We had a small trucking line," he said. The trucking company had a government contract hauling bombs to the West Coast. "We didn't want to come back empty so we started hauling produce back," said Wiethop.

Later the truck line, Cape Refrigerated Express (CRE) started hauling mostly bananas, from the South to the North. Wiethop eventually sold the CRE line to a company at Mt. Vernon, Ill.

The Wiethop company, which placed first in U.S. retail sales for medium and heavy trucks in 1990, has more than 40 employees. It has a payroll of about $1.3 million. The company also maintains the largest truck and trailer repair shop between St. Louis and Memphis.

The company sells Navistar International Transportation Corp. vehicles. Navistar attains almost 32 percent of the market share for trucks sales in the medium- to large-class range.

"Navistar also has a big school bus business," said Stephen J. Larkin, Southwest regional vice president for Navistar, who was in Cape Girardeau last week to recognize Wiethop for 40 years of service. "We have about 65 percent of the nation's bus market."

Navistar came into existence in 1985 when International Harvester sold off its farm equipment business to Tenneco. Navistar has the largest exclusive truck dealership network in North America, with more than 600 sales operations.

Navistar announced a big transaction late last week, an agreement by Israel's defense ministry to buy 835 new trucks and some spare parts from the truck maker in a deal valued at $35 million. Navistar officials say they expects to ship the first 110 units to Israel by the end of the year, with the rest to be delivered in 1995 and 1996.